After a long walk through the leafy and pavement bereft lanes of Ewell we evidently reach the place. Its Saturday night, but Driftbridge was devoid of all life - much less women. This might have been connected with the fag burns on the linoleum, the cracked and peeling paint, and one or two stains, which looks suspiciously like blood.
There are three aged boozers in one corner, but they could have been there since the war. They were certainly old enough! The place seems to be a bit of a dump but we are too far from our normal haunts to even contemplate returning to them, so we have little choice but to tough it out. It promised to be a dull and long evening.
Naturally, without any girls to ogle, we talk about them instead. I ask Mark about Diane, he denies anything even remotely resembling a relationship. But after a few pints he opens up a just a little. He confesses that he was a little stunned when Diane first spoke to him. But never a man to turn down an opportunity had decided to see what would happen next and that seems to be a degree of affection. They have been flirting although flirting in Gaynesford terms consists of making determined efforts by each party to put the other in hospital or at the very least in need of plasters and aspirin.
I have to admit and unwisely do so, to being a bit nonplussed by this coupling but it does seem to be working. Mark is a bit indignant that I have suggested that they will not make a good couple and in truth I am at a loss to offer any reason why. Besides, I am hardly in a position to offer expert advice!
The evening is coming to an alcohol hazily conclusion - when out of nowhere Steve asks.
“Do you think I have a chance with Beverley?”
Beverley? Up to that point I had no idea that Steve had even spoken to her! As it turned out I was right he hadn't spoken but had decided that she was beautiful and he would try and get off with her.
“You fancy her?” I ask rather stupidly.
“I like her.” Says Steve playing for time; aware that he may just have talked himself into a corner.
“Ask her out!” I suggest from the happy position of the completely irresponsible.
Steve shakes his head.
"She doesn't even know that I exist!" He says despondently.
Editors note: In his account of the period "Surely there's a girl out there?" Steve Johnson recorded his first glimmerings of love and how he dealt with it. There are significant differences between Cook's account and Johnson's and perhaps the most interesting one is the suggestion that Johnson and Simmons were not acquainted. Several years earlier one of their friends, David Hunt, had attempted to ask Beverley out and enlisted the aid of first Cook and then Johnson in writing a Valentine love letter. Johnson also concatenates much of the action but in his own defence did later point out that the account was never intended to be complete factually correct but more a zeitgeist.
Chapter One: My Awakening
Well, I had been in Gaynesford for only about two weeks when for the first time in my life I fell hopelessly in love with a fellow sixth former - she was a girl! 1
It was an emotion that I could not handle. It was entirely new to me. I adored her, but at first she didn't notice me. Being a modest young man, I couldn't give my emotions away to her. Hey man! I was high! But at the same time I was driven mad with frustration. There was this lady I would have died for, but I hadn't even spoken to her! I was crying inside. I couldn't even tell Ron about my raven haired beauty. When I got home, I just lay around the house listening to romantic music and staring at the ceiling.
Then one day I discovered that his lovely nubile young girl lived just over the road from me. I sighed with passion when I thought of how every morning she would walk the same route to school as me. I was hopelessly lost. I couldn't take it anymore.
That evening I went up The California with Mick Kerbey and we got bloody pissed as newts. We ended up in intensive care for six weeks. When I left hospital my appetite for life had gone, but the flames of my passion still roared inside my heaving chest. When I went back to school I spoke to her for the first time - I told her to go on duty. I was blown out darling I could not hold it inside me. I had to tell the lad. I'm gonna have a crack at that!" I remember telling Ron. But our Ron was was rather sceptical saying that wouldn't even have the guts to speak to her.
Well man, I was committed now, wasn't I!
© Stephen Michael Johnson. “Surely there's a girl out there, with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair!”
Editors note: While Cook and company struggled to come to terms with the problems of adolescence, problems of another kind entirely were about to take centre stage. Unbeknown to the trio the local education committee had sanctioned a visit to the school from a noted German band. The exact set of circumstances, which lead to the Minden brass band playing at Gaynesford, was unknown. However, it can be surmised that Helen Orme was in some way at the forefront of the unusual and some would say dangerous decision to use the hall at the school to host the concert.
What is known was that at the time, Sutton was attempting a series of “twinning” exercises and the Minden in Germany was one of the towns that had been chosen as twinned. Minden, a market town was an unlikely choice for a twined town to Sutton. But Sutton council at the time was anxious to ensure the maximum number of towns that it could claims as "twin.” Somehow Orme managed to persuade the education authorities in Sutton that Gaynesford should be one of the venues for a performance of the brass band.
The audience would be composed of other schools and various members of the borough's great and good. It must be considered a tribute to her skills as a guerilla politician that she managed to do this bearing in mind that until recently the school had been deemed little more than a war zone.
It is noticeable that while Orme started to publicise the event within hours of the council confirming the venue but it was full two weeks before she announced her plan to the pupils in Gaynesford. In fact as Cook's diary recalls, the prefects were only informed on the day of the arrival of the band and possibly on then because their services as guards and ushers were needed. This was undoubtedly to minimise any potential problems. Cook's diary takes up the story when in the wake of their unsuccessful girl hunt, Cook Powell and Johnson returned to Gaynesford.
Pictures
1. Beverley Simmons circa 1978.
Footnote.
1. We are confident that Johnson had his tongue firmly in his cheeck when writing this.
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